Rota and holiday software for salons

A rota that follows the appointment book

Rotaleave does not take client bookings. Keep your booking system for that. Rotaleave decides who is working, on a grid with a row for each person and a column for each day.

Save your usual days as shift templates, such as Open 9-5.30, Late 12-8 and Saturday 8.30-5, and each one becomes a button. If your weeks repeat, build them once, save up to four weeks as a week template, and apply it up to 13 times. Or fill the week from each person’s working pattern, which skips anyone on approved holiday.

If the salon shuts on Mondays, leave Monday out of everyone’s working pattern. Filling the week never puts anyone on it, and a week’s holiday takes nothing for that day. For a one-off closure, such as a refit or Christmas Day, an admin adds the date as a closure and the rota shades it.

Holiday in hours, not days

A stylist who works ten hours on a Saturday and five on a Wednesday has two very different days. Count their holiday in days and one of you loses out. gov.uk says part-time workers get at least 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday, which works out at fewer than 28 days (holiday entitlement). In hours, that is 5.6 times their normal week: 134.4 hours for someone on 24 hours a week.

Give each person an Hours allowance and they book the exact time they need. The form shows what a request will use before they send it. Only time inside their working pattern comes off, so a request that runs past their finishing time only costs the hours they would have worked. If you would rather count in days, a Days allowance is pro-rated from each person’s working pattern for you. The pro-rata holiday calculator checks the figure by hand.

Part-timers on changing weeks

Plenty of stylists do not work the same days every week: Tuesday and Wednesday one week, Thursday to Saturday the next. A working pattern can repeat over two, three or four weeks. Holiday on a Week 2 Thursday takes that Thursday’s hours, and the same day in Week 1 takes nothing. The allowance uses the average, so it does not jump about. On the rota, each person’s contracted hours follow the week you are looking at.

Bank holidays are fair to part-timers as well. If you close on a bank holiday and take it from allowances, it only comes off for people who would have worked that day. If you stay open, it is an ordinary day and staff book it like any other. The bank holiday guide for part-time staff explains the rules.

Apprentices and college days

In England, gov.uk says an apprentice is an employee who earns a wage and gets holiday pay, with time for training and study of at least 20% of their normal working hours (become an apprentice). As employees, they get the same statutory 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday as the rest of the team.

Keep the college day in the apprentice’s working pattern, because it is paid time and their holiday is worked out from it. Then leave them off the salon rota that day. If you fill weeks from working patterns, delete the shift it adds on college days, or build the rota from a week template instead.

Keeping the right people in

Skills let you protect the work only some people can do. Add a skill such as Colour, give it to the people who hold it, and set a rule that at least one of them is working each day. Set the rule to block, and a holiday request that would leave you short goes to the approver, who sees the gap before saying yes. You can also set a limit on how many people from one department can be off at once.

December and wedding season are when holiday hurts most. gov.uk says employers can restrict when leave is taken, for example at busy periods (booking time off). A blackout period in Rotaleave blocks or warns on requests for those dates. Sickness is never blocked.

Chair renters

Self-employed chair renters run their own business. gov.uk says employment law does not cover self-employed people in most cases (self-employed and contractor), so you do not set their hours or give them holiday. Rotaleave is built for the staff you employ. If you add a renter to see who is in, they count as a person on your plan.

On the team’s phones

Publish the week and each person whose shifts are new or changed gets an email, plus a push notification if they use the app. Staff see their shifts, book holiday and check what they have left from their phone. They can also mark the days they can’t work, which shows when you choose who takes a shift but never stops you. If you want a clock-in, a tablet on the front desk can run the app in kiosk mode with a 4-digit PIN for each person. It is optional: switch clock-in off for a department that does not need it.

What it costs a salon

A salon with 10 people or fewer pays nothing, with no time limit. Bigger teams pay £5 a month plus £1 for each person over 10, plus VAT where it applies. Every account starts with 30 days of everything, and no card is needed. See pricing, or read more about holiday in hours.